The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) revealed in mid-September that it had been a target of the Metropolitan police’s undercover Special Demonstration Squad during the 1980s.
Two undercover police officers were involved, according to the long-running Undercover Police Inquiry (UCPI).
‘John Kerry’ worked in the CND office in London between 1981 and 1984.
‘Timothy Spence’ inserted himself into a CND group in East London (as well as defence campaigns against the Police Bill in Hackney) in 1985 – 1986.
CND general secretary Kate Hudson commented: ‘It is shocking to discover that public resources were wasted on “infiltrating” CND as if we were a risk to life and limb or a threat to the security of the realm.’
The UCPI granted CND ‘core participant’ status in the inquiry this summer.
At the same time, it granted ‘core participant’ status to Greenham woman Rebecca Johnson and to a lawyer who acted for many Greenham women, Jane Hickman. Hickman was also a member of Lambeth Women for Peace. Both women knew and remember ‘HN33’, an undercover police officer who infiltrated both Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp and Lambeth Women for Peace between 1983 and 1985.